Part 2 of my interview with Cynthia M Ruiz.

Cynthia M. Ruiz is an Award-winning Professor, best-selling author, Personal Development Speaker, and Leadership Expert. Coming from blended cultures Latina and Native American (Mexican & Cherokee), she enjoys a passion for helping others.

Receiving over 75 accolades and awards for her leadership and service to the community. 

Cynthia has decades of Executive-level Experience, including the past vice president of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power Board (LADWP), overseeing the largest municipal Utility in the U.S. with a six-billion-dollar budget.

Previously she served seven years as President of LACERS (Los Angeles City Employee Retirement System), overseeing a multibillion-dollar pension fund. 

Her career has placed her in many leadership roles, including President of the Board of Public Works for the City of Los Angeles, where she had direct oversight of 6,000 employees and just under a billion dollars per year budget. She has worked as an Executive at the Port of Los Angeles (the number one container Port in the U.S.) and successfully managed her own successful business for two decades.

She is the author of five books, including her most recent, "Sacred Ceremony & Ritual for Today's World; A how-to Guide." Plus, "Cherokee Wisdom- 12 Lessons for Becoming a Powerful Leader" (2 editions), "Finding Sane Relationships in a Crazy World" (English & Spanish), and "Yo Tambien- Stories of Healing & Hope" (English & Spanish). 

She appeared in Discover the Gift (movie/book) with notables, including, His Holiness the Dala Lama, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Jack Canfield, and many more.

She received the Los Angeles Business Journal "2022 Mentor of the Year Award". Cherokee Nation named her Community Leader of the Year in 2019, and Hispanic Lifestyle called her a "2018 Latina of Influence". She has received the prestigious Hollywood Chamber "Women of Distinction Award, the HOPE "Ray of Hope" award, and the Weingart, "Women Building LA Award. Twice the California Apparel News has listed her on their renowned List of Influential People, and L.A. Weekly showcased her in their people addition.

As a Professor, she received the "Presidents Award" from the University of West Los Angeles for her work as an outstanding Professor. Cynthia teaches leadership at graduate and undergraduate levels in the School of Business. She has over twenty years of experience teaching and public speaking. 

Cynthia holds a Master of Science Degree in Counseling from California State University Los Angeles and has completed a Leadership Course at Harvard University, John F Kennedy School of Government.

She has been a trailblazer throughout her career, as she was the first person in her family to attend college. She was the first Native American to serve on the LADWP Board and the first Latina/Native American to be President of the LACERS Board and Board of Public Works for the City of Los Angeles. 

Cynthia knows the importance of giving back and always strives to stay humble. She has a passion for women's empowerment starting the Wise Latina Network and is a co-founder of the Yo Tambien Healing Movement. 

She is a registered citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is a Chair of the Los Angeles Cherokee Nation affiliate. She has served on numerous non-profit Boards throughout her adult life. She lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys the diversity and culture of a metropolitan environment.

For more information, visit: www.CynthiaMRuiz.com

https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.ruiz.397

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiaruizaba2287/

https://www.instagram.com/cynthiamruiz/

Part 1 of my interview with Devon Glover.

Devon Glover is a teacher, rapper, poet, playwright, and actor from Brooklyn, New York. He performs Shakespeare's Sonnets through Hip-Hop as The Sonnet Man in schools and theaters worldwide. Devon has appeared on NBC, MSNBC, BBC, and Conferences and Shakespeare Festivals worldwide, including Stratford, Ontario, and Stratford-upon-Avon. He has taught with Stratford Shakespeare, Passion in Practice, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Southern Shakespeare, among others. Devon has written adaptations of Shakespeare for various theatre companies.  In 2016, in honor of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Devon went on a Sonnet Marathon tour through the US, UK, and Morocco, where he rapped all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets in succession on the Bard’s birthday.  In the fall 2017, Devon co-wrote “A Town Divided” , an adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” based in Tallahassee, FL.  In the Summer 2019, Devon was commissioned by Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to write a hip-hop adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (Lyrica). In 2022, Glover made his directorial debut, directing Othello for Flagstaff Shakespeare.  In the Summer 2023, Devon was hired to compose and create sound design for Prague Shakespeare’s ‘Roman Daggers’, a mash-up adaptation of Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, where he also took on the role of Cinna The Poet.  For more information, visit www.SonnetMan.com.

Part 2 of my interview with Devon Glover.

Devon Glover is a teacher, rapper, poet, playwright, and actor from Brooklyn, New York. He performs Shakespeare's Sonnets through Hip-Hop as The Sonnet Man in schools and theaters worldwide. Devon has appeared on NBC, MSNBC, BBC, and Conferences and Shakespeare Festivals worldwide, including Stratford, Ontario, and Stratford-upon-Avon. He has taught with Stratford Shakespeare, Passion in Practice, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Southern Shakespeare, among others. Devon has written adaptations of Shakespeare for various theatre companies.  In 2016, in honor of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Devon went on a Sonnet Marathon tour through the US, UK, and Morocco, where he rapped all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets in succession on the Bard’s birthday.  In the fall 2017, Devon co-wrote “A Town Divided” , an adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” based in Tallahassee, FL.  In the Summer 2019, Devon was commissioned by Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to write a hip-hop adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (Lyrica). In 2022, Glover made his directorial debut, directing Othello for Flagstaff Shakespeare.  In the Summer 2023, Devon was hired to compose and create sound design for Prague Shakespeare’s ‘Roman Daggers’, a mash-up adaptation of Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, where he also took on the role of Cinna The Poet.  For more information, visit www.SonnetMan.com.

Interview with Amy Starr Allen lives in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, and has been a home-based entrepreneur since 2004.

Amy loves to help other entrepreneurs by showing them ways to market authentically and serve their audiences from a place of integrity and heart while creating fulfillment and flexibility in their lives.

Interview with Valda Boyd Ford is the CEO of the Center for Human Diversity, a non-profit agency dedicated to improving communication between and across diverse groups. Over the past thirty years, she has worked in more than 50 countries with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, tribal chiefs, Afghani teachers and Buddhist monks, health care professionals, and law enforcers to improve health, decrease negative outcomes, enhance leadership skills, and decrease vulnerability.

From her early days in Saudi Arabia where she worked with multi-lingual and multi-national staff from 33 nations to deliver one standard of care to her appointment to the Council of Public Representatives of the National Institutes of Health Valda has been intimately involved with education and policy development. Her knowledge allows her to work with the smallest of community groups to the most complex global agencies. Over the years she has gone from a staff nurse to Assistant Director of Nursing, from an Assistant Professor to Director of Community and Multicultural Affairs and from a contractor to a CEO.

Her career has taken Valda to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Netherlands and eventually the Caribbean, where she developed her own cardiac, stroke and physical rehabilitation center. The first facility of its kind in the region, Valda realized the financial and social hardships of patients sent 1000 miles to the mainland for care and capitalized on the value of having exceptional care rooted in cultural and linguistic diversity near at hand.

Inspired by her experiences over nearly a decade in the Caribbean and the Middle East and because of a high demand for her advice and training she created the Center for Human Diversity. Because of her leadership and innovative approach to problems she has received many honors and awards for her work in leadership and diversity and inclusion – from innovative and effective workforce assessments to community based programs for vulnerable populations to HIV and STD prevention strategies for teens and adults.

How do you change hearts and minds? Valda created a program to get the most disenfranchised women together with women who were successful. The program was called the Heart and Soul Red Dress Dinner and Seminar and it brought women out for a night of learning about their health in a relaxed and culturally appropriate setting. Over four years the Heart and Soul Red Dress event went from a beginning attendance of a few hundred to over 800 women representing 38 cultures and 18 languages. Many of the successful women became mentors for those less fortunate. Some micro-loans were given and home-based businesses were formed.

From the Heart and Soul program came the Living, Laughing and Loving series. It is fine to be successful but are you successful at life AND career or just career. Valda gives workshops and keynotes specifically designed to help career-minded people learn that “without your health” you are lacking. That can be physical, emotional, financial or psychological. Valda’s decades of experience as a Registered Nurse and nurse educator allow her to make fun and factual programs that work.

Building on the Center’s mission to reduce vulnerability Valda works to reduce infant and maternal mortality and is a frequent speaker/trainer for Healthy Start agencies. Her advanced training helps her to provide sexual literacy and relationship information to all who are interested because having control of your sexual health means you have control of your life. Her hope is that knowledge gained will be passed on to future generations and help to stem the tide of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, problems during pregnancy and decrease the number of premature and low birth weight babies. She speaks to individuals and community groups about our responsibility to shape our communities by giving what is needed at the earliest possible point.

Valda is one of the featured writers in the recently released book The Speaker Anthology: 101 Stories that have Inspired and Motivated Audiences from Coast to Coast. Additionally Valda has contributed chapters to two medical textbooks on diversity and ethics, Cultural Proficiency in Eliminating Health Disparities and Health Care Services, Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Underserved Populations: Patient and Provider Perspectives and she is the author of Don’t Touch the Monk: and Other Stories of Global Faux Pas due to be released December 2021. She has written many articles, stories, and columns for local and national media outlets.

Interview Part 1 with Claire Olivier.

As an Intuitive Guide, Claire Olivier connects people with the information that is meant for them in present time, offering support on their journey. She tunes into their energy to see what wants to come through, providing clarity regarding questions or challenges. Claire then supports integrating this information in a variety of ways including energy healing. Each session can be unique. She is skilled at working with people who are often stuck in their mind. "Our mind usually wants us to hurry up and ‘figure it out,’ in response to any challenge in our life, whether it’s a painful emotion or not knowing what to do about a situation. I’ve found that this ‘figure it out’ response results in stress, not wisdom. Wisdom comes from slowing down to actually meet what is arising, allowing other perspectives to reveal themselves." Claire is also a Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher and brings compassionate awareness into each session. Her sessions are mostly offered remotely, but she loves the opportunity to do in-person events in her current home of Asheville, NC. Claire offers single and ongoing 1 on 1 intuitive sessions remotely through Zoom or by phone.  Additional information, services, and contact information can be found on her website: www.clairechantalolivier.com

Interview Part 2 with Claire Olivier.

As an Intuitive Guide, Claire Olivier connects people with the information that is meant for them in present time, offering support on their journey. She tunes into their energy to see what wants to come through, providing clarity regarding questions or challenges. Claire then supports integrating this information in a variety of ways including energy healing. Each session can be unique. She is skilled at working with people who are often stuck in their mind. "Our mind usually wants us to hurry up and ‘figure it out,’ in response to any challenge in our life, whether it’s a painful emotion or not knowing what to do about a situation. I’ve found that this ‘figure it out’ response results in stress, not wisdom. Wisdom comes from slowing down to actually meet what is arising, allowing other perspectives to reveal themselves." Claire is also a Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher and brings compassionate awareness into each session. Her sessions are mostly offered remotely, but she loves the opportunity to do in-person events in her current home of Asheville, NC. Claire offers single and ongoing 1 on 1 intuitive sessions remotely through Zoom or by phone.  Additional information, services, and contact information can be found on her website: www.clairechantalolivier.com